You can view the details of the tournament by hovering your mouse cursor over the (i) icon next to the tournament’s title

Q: How do I view the tournament’s detailed information?

Click on the tournament’s name in the tournaments tab

Click on the details tab at the top of the tournament screen

Format: Standard / Chess960, Time control, Rated / Unrated

Entry fee: How much it costs to enter the tournament

Prizes: The prizes to be won

Date: The date and time of the tournament

Rounds: The number of rounds, and the pairing method (ChessCube / Round Robin)

Status: The current round being played in the tournament

Players: The number of entries, as well as the max number of entries allowed

Manager: The user organising the tournament

Time left: The estimated time until the tournament is finished

Average rating: The average rating of the tournament participants

Q: How can I enter a tournament?

Click on the tournament tab

Click on the (+) button

If the button is green: you will be able to enter

If the button is grey: you cannot enter (if you hover over the button a tool tip will show you the reason why)

Q: Is there a limit as to how many tournament I can enter?

There is no hard limit on how many tournaments you can enter. But we encourage users to be sensible when entering tournaments, because if they overlap you could have multiple games starting at once!

Q: What does the Turn Messages On/Off button on the tournament details screen do?

This turns tournament related notifications on/off – the messages which slide out from the left of the screen above the board and rooms. These provide more information about the current state of the tournament. Spectators can also turn these messages on and they are unrelated to player specific messages (such as when you miss a round).

Players in a tournament cannot turn these messages off.

Q: How can I withdraw from the tournament?

Currently users cannot withdraw from a tournament

Q: Do I lose rating points if I am not online at the time of the tournament?

In ChessCube format tournaments you will not be paired for a round if you are not online. Thus no rating points will be lost.

If you are online you will be paired. If for some reason you do not play your game you will lose that game (and rating points depending on who you were paired against). A confirmation window will appear asking whether you still want to play in the tournament. If you do not confirm entry you will not be paired in any of the subsequent rounds for that tournament.

Q: How do I join the tournament’s chat?

Click on the tournament in the tournament tab

Click on the chat icon at the top of the tournament information page

Q: What happens if I miss a round?

If a player does not play his/her game during a round they will forfeit the game and be removed from subsequent rounds for the tournament. A notification will be displayed which the player will have to accept to re-enter the tournament.

Q: What happens if I disconnect or have to leave during a round in the tournament?

If a player is disconnected or cannot complete his/her game for whatever reason during a round the game will be forfeited (counted as a loss) for that player.

Q: What is ChessCube format?

This is ChessCube’s exclusive pairing algorithm. It takes a lot of factors into consideration when deciding who plays who in each round:

Initially players are randomly allocated into two pools; those who begin as White, and those who begin as Black. For each successive round each player’s colour alternates between Black and White.

Players will, whenever possible, be paired with the opponent in the other pool with the rating closest to theirs, as calculated from everyone’s tournament performance thus far.

In keeping with the promise to start every player on an equal footing, the algorithm assumes a starting rating of 1500 for everyone. Thus the first round pairings are always random.

After the first round pairings are calculated based on your tournament performance rating. At the end of each round new ratings are determined based on the wins and losses. It is desirable to calculate rating changes based on something more intelligent than a naive assumption of a 1500 rating for everyone. To achieve this, the rating is calculated based on all rounds played thus far, the calculated rating is taken as a replacement initial rating, and the rating changes for all games are recalculated. This cycle is performed six times. Each cycle means that the assumed rating is a better approximation of each player’s real skill, as each cycle factors in not just your opponents’ performance against you, but also the strength of their performance against others. Six cycles mean that the track record from other games is taken into consideration right out to six degrees of separation between players.

Should players be unable to play a given round, the number of available White and Black players may become unbalanced, and players will be transfered between the pools to balance them. As this would cause a player to have the same colour on two consecutive games, every attempt is made to avoid subjecting any given player to this operation more than once per tournament.

In later rounds, it becomes increasingly difficult to find suitable pairings, so taking advantage of the fact that players who started as a given colour would not normally have encountered any of the other players who also started as that same colour, every second white player is swapped with every second black played. This refreshes the available un-played opponents, at the expense of having half the players play the same colour twice in a row.

Q: What is ChessCube Tiebreak?

ChessCube Tiebreak is calculated according to the general ChessCube rating formula (explained in this post) and applying the steps explained under ChessCube format.

Q: How is the tournament winner decided?

The tournament winner is the player with the highest score at the end of the tournament. If two or more players end on the same score then the tiebreak is used to determine which player ends where. If both the score and tiebreak are equal players will share the position and any prizes.

Q: Is there cheat detection during tournaments?

ChessCube runs cheat detection both during and after tournaments. If any user is found to have cheated he/she will be dealt with as specified in the Terms and Conditions.

Q: Will there be tournaments for rating groups?

This (as well as other entry criteria) is something we are working on and will be coming soon…